“Help, help!” she said, her chest heaving. “I’m at the treatment plant in East Grove! I’m being chased by men with guns. They killed people at the sandwich shop. Please hurry!” She left the receiver hanging and took off running. She heard a noise behind her in the office area. She glanced back reflexively at the sound. Nobody was there, but they must’ve been coming. She almost cried out for help, but she couldn’t be sure if it was an employee or Carlos.
She burst through the door at the end of the hall into a cavernous building, as big as a warehouse but completely empty. The concrete floor was wet as if it had just been hosed down. She didn’t see any employees or anyplace to hide. The air was warm and wet. A tractor-trailer with an empty container sat parked in the open door. Thick industrial orange-and-yellow hook hoses lay nearby. Her heart leapt at the distant sound of sirens. The police were finally getting here. Help was on the way. All she had to do was stay alive.
She heard another noise behind her in the office area. The distinct slamming of a door, then men speaking Spanish. She didn’t recognize the voices. She still didn’t know if they were employees or Carlos and Roberto. She raced from the empty room, through another door, and almost plowed into a big white cylinder on a cart. HEAT STAR, it read, but she couldn’t use it as a weapon or anything else.
She bolted past it into another huge room with a wet floor, looking around wildly for help. The air was hot and more humid. There was nobody. A twenty-foot-tall green machine that read CHRISTIAENS GROUP sat on a rail close to the wall. She bolted behind it to see if it would hide her, but it wouldn’t. She looked up, her heart pounding. Gray piping of all kinds was suspended from the corrugated ceiling. None of it could help her. The police sirens sounded closer. So did the men speaking Spanish, calling to each other. They were angry, their words staccato. It had to be Carlos and Roberto.
Judy’s heart thundered with terror. Adrenaline poured into her system. She had to think of something. She had to save herself. She spotted a stairway of stainless steel that went from the floor to ceiling and led to a conveyor belt with a sign Danger: Pinch Points, Peligro: Puntos de Ajustamiento. She would have run up it but it didn’t lead anywhere except the conveyor belt.
She wheeled around in a panic. She ran to a black tractor-trailer that sat parked underneath the conveyor belt. Heat emanated from its massive engine. The driver must have just abandoned it. He could have left the keys in the ignition. She clambered onto the rubber step to the cab, but there was no key.
Police sirens cut the air outside, closer but not here yet. Carlos and Roberto had fallen silent. Judy didn’t know where they were. She had to get out of sight. The hall from the office would lead them directly here. Her panicky gaze found a skinny middle ladder that was part of the truck, going up the side.
She jumped onto the closest rung and scrambled to the roof of the container. There was barely a foot between the top of the truck and the corrugated ceiling of the room. She flattened down just in time to see light spill from the door. The silhouette of a short, muscular man stood in the threshold. In his hand was a handgun.
She bit her lip not to cry out in fear. It had to be Roberto because Carlos had a rifle. She turned her head and pressed it flat against the metal roof of the container, which was covered with grit and dirt from the road. She couldn’t risk raising her head or she would be seen. Instead she watched Roberto’s shadow, moving on the floor. He entered the room and walked around, raising his gun. He was looking for her. He was going to kill her.
Judy remained perfectly still. She could hear his footsteps faintly, in heavy boots. He was trying to walk quietly. She breathed as shallowly as possible. The heat in the room made it hard to inhale. She pressed her face and cheek against the roof of the container.
Suddenly, a shifting movement caught her eye on the other side of the vast room, by the open rolltop door. It was a man. He walked into view and even at a distance, she could see it was Carlos, raising his rifle.
Terror shot through her. The police siren sounded closer, but Carlos and Roberto were in no hurry. She forced herself to think. She had to do something. She realized that Carlos and Roberto couldn’t see each other because the truck was in the middle. She would lose the opportunity if they kept moving.
She swept her hand slowly over the surface of the container, feeling the grit for the biggest rock. She found one, closed her hand around it, and waited for the right moment. She tried to control her breathing and her fear. She blocked out the sound of the police sirens. She cleared her head of any other thought.
She watched silently as Carlos walked farther into the room. Then Roberto’s shadow vanished, which meant that he was well out of the doorway and closer into the room, but the two killers still couldn’t see each other.
Now.
Judy pitched the rock in Roberto’s direction and heard it ping off something metal. Carlos responded instantly, swinging the rifle back and forth, spraying gunfire. Shots reverberated at deafening levels throughout the corrugated room. A man cried out in pain, then moaned. The gunfire ended abruptly.
Judy realized her move must have worked. One of the bullets had caught Roberto. She kept her head down and flat. Her ears rung. She didn’t dare peek to see what was going on. Smoke hung in the air.
She heard footsteps running across the room. Carlos yelled furiously in Spanish, from right in front of the truck. Roberto groaned and moaned, crying piteously. Suddenly another barrage of gunfire went off, then ended abruptly.
Judy squeezed her eyes shut. Carlos had just killed Roberto. He would kill her if he discovered her. She gritted her teeth to stay in control of her emotions. She couldn’t predict whether Carlos would go or stay. Whether she would live or die.
She held her breath.
Chapter Forty
Judy stayed as flat as she could on the top of the container. She heard the sound of heavy footsteps walking away. She spotted Carlos’s shadow turning around in the light from the door. He raised his gun as he scanned the space for her. Every muscle in her body clenched with fright.
Police sirens screamed louder and closer. Carlos must have heard them. He was running out of time and he knew it. He edged backwards toward the door. She prayed he kept going. In the next moment he turned around, faced the door, and hustled from the room.
Judy thought about staying but worried he’d come back. She had to keep moving. She had to know where he was. She got up from the container roof so quickly she bumped her head on the ceiling. She was too adrenalized to feel a thing. She got low, scrambled around like a crab, and climbed down the ladder as fast as she could, jumping to the wet concrete floor. She couldn’t go to the right because Carlos had gone that way. She turned left and ran to the open door of the vast room.
Massive industrial fans whirred in the ceiling, masking the sound of her footsteps as she raced across the concrete floor. Her heart pounded, her breath came ragged. She reached the door, squinting from the bright sunlight. The police sirens sounded closer, almost at the sandwich shop. She prayed they had gotten her 911 message from the treatment plant, but she couldn’t wait for help to come. She scanned the yard to see where she could hide.
The area was paved almost a city block, and on the left stood massive rectangular bales of hay, twelve feet tall and thirty feet wide. There had to be forty of them in the field, and beyond them rose hill-size mounds of dark brown compost, with smoke trailing from their peaks.
Judy clung to the corrugated inside of the room. The big fans whirred overhead. She had to plan her next move or it would be her last. She could run to the hay bales. She could go from one to the next, hiding from Carlos until the police came. She would be exposed as she sprinted across the concrete. But she was out of options.
She spotted Carlos pop from behind one of the hay bales, his back turned. He had anticipated her move. He was going from one bale to the next, searching them for her. She couldn’t go that way. She tucked herself from view, waiting for the right moment, keeping a
n eye on Carlos.
Carlos disappeared behind the next hay bale, and she made her move. She darted out of the doorway, turning left away from where she’d seen him. She ran as hard as she could across the concrete yard, dangerously exposed. Birds and turkey vultures flew overhead. Police sirens sounded at the sandwich shop.
Judy kept running, almost slipping. Filth and muddy tire tracks covered the yard. Huge trucks and equipment sat parked willy-nilly, stopped where they were when the employees had left. She skidded as she raced past a yellow truck pulling a coiled red hose, then three front-end loaders that had their buckets in the air. They offered her no place to hide, but she veered in front of them so they would block her from Carlos. She bolted to a cinderblock building that looked like an operations office. She flung open the door, but passed up the office because it had four glass windows on the other side that would show her hiding there. She whirled around.
Behind her lay a huge concrete structure as tall as a single-story house, with a heavy green rail system over the top. The structure was open on the side facing her, only a roof over six cinderblock bins. The bins had a foot-high shield at the front bottom. She could see in a flash that the four closest bins were empty, their concrete side walls brown with filth. The fifth bin had a dirty dump truck parked in front, its bed in the inclined position. The sixth bin looked closed, roped off with yellow caution tape and an official-looking safety notice.
She realized that the bins were where raw manure got dumped, but they could save her life. Carlos wouldn’t suspect she would go in that direction. The fifth bin had enough manure to bury herself in. She could hide behind the structure or run back in the woods.
Police sirens screamed louder. Carlos would be back any minute. If Roberto had driven their white pick-up truck to the plant, it would be parked in front of the office. Carlos would have to run back this way to get the truck and escape the police.
Judy had to do something fast. She sprinted behind the bin structure. The woods were on her left but too far away. She would be exposed for too long if she ran that way. Carlos would cut her down and take off in the truck. On her right was the back of the concrete structure, and it was her only hope. The back of each bin had a heavy mechanized door that closed across the middle. She ran past the first five bins because their doors were chained and padlocked. She ran to the sixth bin on the end, roped off. A handwritten sign read GEARS BROKEN DO NOT USE. The doors of the roped-off bin were open a crack but there was no chain or padlock.
Judy looked around wildly. She had no other choice. She ducked under the caution tape, wedged her hands between the top and bottom doors, and yanked with all her might, trying to open the door. She moved them six inches apart, then a foot, then a little more until they jammed, immovable. Her heart pounded with fear and exertion. The space between the doors looked almost big enough for her body. She heard Carlos running in the concrete yard, cursing in Spanish, his rage boiling over. She was out of time.
She launched herself into the opening, scrambling inside the bin, scraping the outside of the door with her legs and knees. She squeezed inside, wrenching her arm at the socket. She slid down along the filth of the door, keeping a hard grasp of the lid so she wouldn’t make a noise when she hit the bottom. She eased herself onto the floor. Raw manure covered the bin bottom.
Carlos ranted, fifty feet away. She made herself as flat as possible against the back of the bin. Her body was hidden by the foot-high rim at the front of the bin. She squeezed her eyes and lips shut. She stuck her face into the crack between the door and the floor, burrowing down into the manure and the darkness. The stench filled her nose. Her gorge rose with disgust. She had to stay calm.
Carlos was only twenty feet away, cursing in frantic Spanish. The police sirens blared louder and louder. The cruisers were coming down the road to the treatment plant. They must have gotten her 911 call. They were on the way. They were going to rescue her just in time.
Judy had to stay alive for just a few more seconds. Carlos must be looking for her, turning this way and that. She could hear his footsteps on the gritty concrete and hear the scrape of his boots. He would have to leave any second. He was cutting it so close. The police were almost here.
Judy willed herself to keep her wits about her. If she wanted to live, she had to stay still and silent.
Suddenly, in her blazer pocket, her phone started ringing.
Chapter Forty-one
Judy reacted instantly, desperate. She grabbed the phone from her pocket and sent it slipping along the mucky floor, so the ringing came from the far side of the bin. Carlos started firing, but aimed a deafening volley at the bin next to her. Scattered bullets punched holes in the front rim of her bin. She bit her lips not to scream.
Abruptly the gunfire stopped. Smoke drifted into the bin. Her phone rang and rang.
“Freeze right there!” an officer shouted. “Police! Put your weapon on the ground! Put your weapon on the ground!”
Judy could only imagine the standoff outside. The police would train their guns on Carlos, thinking he would give up. She knew better. Carlos wanted her dead even if he was captured alive. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain from her murder. He wanted her silenced for good. Her phone finally went quiet.
“Keep lowering your weapon!” another officer yelled. “Lower it and put it on the ground! Put your weapon on the ground!”
Judy’s heart pounded like it was trying to get out of her chest. She knew what Carlos would do next. He would shoot the policemen. It sounded like only two cops. Carlos was waiting for just the right moment, tricking the police by lowering his weapon. She couldn’t let that happen.
She squeezed both hands around some manure, closed her fists, and jumped up. Carlos was standing five feet from the bin, facing her direction, his gun slightly lowered. She hurled the manure at Carlos’s eyes, then sprang out of the way.
Carlos shouted in surprise. His hands flew up reflexively, firing shots wildly into the air. Judy dove toward the floor for safety, just in time to see Carlos lose his balance, whirl away from her, and recover fast enough to aim his weapon at the police.
Pop pop pop! The police responded with a barrage of firepower.
Judy landed on the bottom of the filthy bin. She heard Carlos cry out, then he went silent. The gunfire stopped.
Judy lay perfectly still, afraid to move. She kept her eyes closed. She was in no hurry to get up and see Carlos’s bullet-ridden body, even as much as she hated him. She opened her eyes slowly, but didn’t understand what she was seeing, amid the brown manure that lay everywhere.
A bright patch of white-and-green paper stood out in the bottom seam of the bin. She reached for it instinctively and pulled. A twenty-dollar bill came from underneath the floor of the bin, attached to another twenty-dollar bill, like Kleenex out of the box. Astounded, she dug her fingers in the seam and pulled out a five-dollar bill and realized that the manure bin must have had a false bottom.
“Miss, are you okay?” the police officers asked, rushing over.
“Look at this, guys,” Judy answered, digging for more money.
Chapter Forty-two
Judy sat at the conference table in the mayor’s office at the Kennett Square Police Station, having finished giving her statement to a room packed with law enforcement personnel, including Detective Boone and two other detectives, three assistant district attorneys, and a fleet of FBI, DEA, and ICE agents who sat in the back of the room, taking rapid notes. The press thronged outside the building, their newsvans, reporters, and cameramen visible through the old-fashioned venetian blinds.
Before her statement, Judy had asked the police to contact her mother and her office to let them know where she was, then she had been photographed in her filthy clothes for purposes of the investigation, and finally showered in the locker room for female officers and changed into a KSPD sweatshirt and sweatpants one of them had lent her. Given the stink of manure on Judy’s skin, she doubted the female officer would wan
t her sweatclothes back.
Judy’s filthy phone sat on the table between her and the law enforcement authorities, next to the silvery recording devices from the various agencies and Domingo’s scrap of paper that read BONIDE and MURIATIC. She had explained everything that had happened at the barracks last night, then what Domingo had told her this morning, playing the recording for them from her phone. Her eyes had filmed at the sound of Domingo’s voice, but she’d kept it together. She consoled herself with the notion that Father Vega was in federal custody and charged with an array of crimes, as well as being investigated for the death of Father Keegan. Carlos and Roberto had met their end, but Judy was enough of a lawyer to wish that they’d rot in jail for the rest of their lives. Luckily, they hadn’t succeeded in killing the two young girls from the Mini Cooper, the old man at the sandwich shop, or the Good Samaritans. The one girl had been hospitalized, but was expected to recover.
Judy met Detective Boone’s eye. “So how much money was under the manure bin?”
“I’m not sure it’s been counted yet.” Detective Boone kept his tone official, but not unkind.
“Ballpark it for me, would you?” Judy understood his reluctance, reading the body language of the FBI behind him, a collective stiffening of postures that were already stiff, in suits and ties.
“We are not at liberty to discuss that, Judy.”
“I think I’ve earned the right to know, don’t you? Modesty aside, nobody would’ve found any money but for me, and I almost got killed in the process.”
“Chester County appreciates your efforts, and as we’ve already said, you are to be commended as a private citizen for—”
“Please just answer the question.” Judy felt too raw and exhausted to mince words. “We both know what a pain in the ass I can be.”
Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) Page 26
